Microsoft just released a new version of Acrylic, which they refer to as August 2005 Community Technology Preview. For those of you who didn't see the other thread here, Microsoft bought (or licensed) Expression from Creature House. Expression is a vector program that can draw with the feel of natural media strokes. Plus, it has bitmap painting tools. Here is a review. And after purchasing it, Microsoft gave it the development codename of Acrylic.

Anyway, it looks like Microsoft is serious about bringing this program along, and you can see the latest features and some demo movies here.

I can't test this version. It only runs on Windows XP. But if any XP users are interested, the download is free. And you can find some lessons here.